All posts tagged Air Quality

Stricken by air pollution, tired of paying so much for fuel imports, fearful of climate change, and looking to cut vehicle ownership costs, India now plans to have all new cars purchased in the country be electric-powered by 2030.

A Crisis Brought on by Fossil Fuel Dependence

If you thought air pollution in China was bad, you haven’t really taken a good look at India.

(Smoke, dust, and industrial pollution choke India’s skies in this 2012 NASA Satellite Photo. During recent years, air quality decline in India has been attributed both to increasing air pollution and to rising instances of wildfire ignition spurred by human-caused climate change.)

Over recent years India’s air pollution death rate, according to Greenpeace, has been steadily ticking upward. And in 2015, the country surpassed China’s annual loss of life due to bad air. In places like the capital city of Dehli, the amount of harmful particulate pollution now often rises to 13 times the maximum safe level recommended by the World Health Organization.

Goyal says that the goal is to have 100 percent of all new cars sold as electrical vehicles by 2030. And it’s a goal that not only aims to reduce harmful pollution — but also to significantly lower fuel imports which presently stand at around 4.5 million barrels of oil per day even as it tamps down the overall cost of running a vehicle. As an added benefit, the program would spur rapid growth in the country’s automotive sector which, if successful, has the potential to leap-frog the country into a far more competitive economic position vis-a-vis the rest of the world. Especially considering the backward energy and climate policies of western heads of state like coal promoters Donald J. Trump and Malcolm Turnbull which threaten to put countries like the U.S. and Australia behind the energy transition curve.

(Are electrical vehicles about to hit an S-Curve type adoption rate? Policies in India and in other nations and cities around the world seem set to help enable an electrical vehicle and renewable energy based transition away from fossil fuels. Image source: Solar Feeds.)